Chapter Text
Jessica carefully opens a drawer in Murray’s desk and begins to search through it. She had unexpectedly run out of ink for her pen a few minutes prior, and all of her pens in her own desk had either been exhausted or had disappeared under mysterious circumstances. She knows Charles only carries pencils, so that had left Murray’s desk as a possible source for a new pen.
While searching for one, her hand accidentally bumps into a device, causing a click noise to emit from it. For a moment she was more worried about the books and papers piled on Murray’s desk falling, but her priorities switched to more pressing matters, such as the rifts that had opened on the ceiling of the antiques shop.
Murray would be very unceremoniously dumped onto the antique shop’s floor, Charlie following soon after from the second rift about a metre away. Charles rushes to help Murray get back on his feet while Jessica quickly scrambles around the desk to assess what had happened and to also help Charlie up-
Or not. Before Jessica could even make it to Charlie, two other people would fall right on top of him. Both of the rifts close afterwards.
“Oooww…” Charlie whimpers from under the dogpile. “I said hop on in, not hop on top o’ me!” He also notices that Murray had also been wrenched out from the—honestly quite depressing—void place, greeting whoever he knew in the room. “Hi uncle Murray. Hi Charles. Hi Jessica.”
“Charlie? You’re alive- who are these people?” Jessica was dumbfounded, seeing the person she had been told was considered dead, lying on the floor of the antiques shop.
Kirstie and Lues try their best to get off from the dogpile, standing up straight. Kirstie suddenly double-takes at Jessica, recognising her. “Wait, Jessica?”
“…Uh, sorry, but I don’t know who you are, in case you recognise me.” Jessica responds. She hadn’t seen these two newcomers in her entire life.
“No worries, Jessica. They’re my pals I met back at tha’ darn void, ‘n I ain’ a goner.”
“The what? No, nevermind, I don’t think I need to know.” Jessica sighs, looking back at Charlie and offering an arm to help him up. “You were there for weeks, were you okay?”
Charlie grabs Jessica’s arm, allowing her to pull himself up. “I was fine, no need t’ worry.” He dusts himself off, ignoring his bruises as he turns to face Murray. “ ‘Ey, uncle Murray, y’alright?”
Murray stands on his two feet, breathing a sigh of relief. “Whoa, I thought I’d be stuck drifting around in space forever. But other than that, I’m fine, kiddo.” Murray then focuses on Jessica, “Hey, I can’t thank you enough for triggering that failsafe. When did you know to activate it?”
“A failsafe? I was just looking for a pen in your desk when my last one ran out.” She looks over at Murray’s desk, the offending drawer still open, before going to take a seat back at her own desk.
“...Err, Murray? Could they stay ‘ere for a while?” Charlie motions towards Lues and Kirstie, who had moved to the side of the room. “I mean, ‘ey, they were the only people I could’a talked to durin’ my stint in the void.”
“Hm, that depends, kiddo. Do you trust them?” Murray locks eyes with Charlie.
There are a few seconds of silence as Charlie deliberates. “Yeah? Names ‘re Kirstie Carys, the blonde one and Lues Kuznetsov, the black haired lady.”
“Welp, if you say so, then yes! Well, as long as they work.” Murray swivels his head to look at the two guests. “But not right now, you three look like you’ve been craving entertainment for weeks. How about you two wander around Ocean City for a while? It should get your spirits up.”
Lues nods. “Thank you, sir.” She glances at Kirstie. “I don’t have much to do here. I’ll wait for you outside.” Then she takes her leave through the door, the bell jingling as it opens and closes.
“O- oh, right. Thanks, Murray…” Kirstie trails off, waiting for Murray to respond.
“Murray Morris, but just use Murray for me, no need for those ‘mister’ honorifics.” He pauses. “But, wait a minute. What’s that?”
“Huh? What’s what?”
“You’ve got something behind your ear.” Murray approaches, reaching behind Kirstie’s ear. He pulls out 5 Meat from seemingly nowhere and hands them to Kirstie.
“Oh, wow. Thank you again, Murray.” Kirstie takes the Meat and pockets it. She then takes out a relatively new pen she had found back in the diner, placing it on Jessica’s desk. “I heard that you were missing a pen, so…”
Jessica nods a silent ‘thanks’ to Kirstie.
After Kirstie leaves, Jessica uncaps the new pen. “By the way, Murray. Charlie used your bedroom while you were gone.”
“That’s fine, I was already looking to get an actual house pretty soon before this whole kidnapping thing happened.” Murray coughs a few times into his fist. “Darn, I need to get some fresh air. Before I go, kid, if they’re staying in the backroom, you should get some beds for them.”
“Whaat? How th’ heck ‘m I s’posed to do that?” Charlie is decently strong, but not carry-two-beds-at-the same-time-while-travelling strong.
“Charles is gonna come with you. Right, Charles?” He looks at Charles.
“Uhh, yeah, sure. I’ll help ya.” He nods.
“That solves it. See you.” Murray opens and exits the antiques shop.
Charlie sighs, rubbing his eyes. His curiosity about his old companions arose, so he asks. “ ‘Ey, Jessica. Think I could talk with my ol’ crew again?”
“No, unfortunately. They’ve either dropped off the grid, doing their own work or are out of the country.” Jessica, after receiving the pen, is already back to work.
“Aw, whaat? Well, how’re they doin’ at least?”
“Uhh, let’s see…” Jessica attempts to recall where and what Charlie’s old companions were doing nowadays. “Gabby seems to have joined a league about bare-knuckle boxing? I don’t really know, but I’m sure she’ll come up sometime in the future.”
“Molly disappeared with Nancy. The last time I heard of them was that they were executing heists in Bolivia.”
“Good for ‘er, at least. ‘M gonna miss ‘em though.” Charlie comments, before letting Jessica continue.
“Simone is actually the chair of the S.I.T. Robotechtronics department. If you go back to campus, maybe you could meet her again.”
“And finally, I really do not know where that gator went. Sorry.”
“Nuts.” He sighs. “Righty-o, thanks ‘nyway.” Charlie adjusts his fedora, walking out the door.
The air around the boardwalk is damp as usual, with the faint smell of cotton candy permeating through the air.
Kirstie and Lues look around. The boardwalk is still the same as they remember; the sketchy fortune telling booth, the hat photography studio and the games stand are up and running.
The two of them are walking past the game stand when the person running it suddenly calls out.
“Step right up, step right up and try out the October special game! Test your strength and your agility and your intellect with a halloween-y twist!" He waves Lues and Kirstie over. "You there, ladies, care to face the spookiest challenge of your lives? Only 11 Meat, just 1 extra than our regular challenges!"
That’s not right. Lues remembers the calendar she saw back at the antiques shop. While she did not bother to remember the full date, she is certain about the current month. “It’s November.”
The man, still undeterred, continues. “That’s why it’s special, miss! It continues even after October!”
Lues glances towards Kirstie for an answer. Kirstie notices, slightly shrugging and saying, “Uh, what’s the challenge?”
The man working the stand grins at them. “It’s just as hard as our fourth-level challenge, but since both of you have help from each other, I’ll put in a little dash of teamwork to it!” He begins to collect the items from the back of the stand, still announcing the challenge itself. “You, the blonde one will have to unscramble a 22 word sentence, which is a riddle and then solve that riddle. The ebony-haired one will then have to punch through about an inch of plywood to open a safe using the riddle’s answer, then the both of you will have to carve a jack-o-lantern spooky enough to startle me using the tools in the safe, all within 120 seconds.”
Lues shrugs, leaving Kirstie to choose. She laughs a little, saying “Couldn’t hurt to try, I- I guess?”
“Alright! This is a bit of a hard one.” The man slides a small paper with a sentence typed out on it.
FI YUO AET TI OUY AVTSER, HET CIRH ESNED TI TEH OOPR HEAV TI, EARTGER TANH IIFNYNIT ADN REDRKA HTNA HTE WODAHS
What Kirstie was expecting was words being placed in the wrong areas, not the letters being jumbled up. She could work with this, though.
Unscramble the words - [10 Mysticality]
IF YOU EAT IT YOU STARVE, THE RICH NEEDS IT THE POOR HAVE IT, GREATER THAN INFINITY AND DARKER THAN THE SHADOW
Kirstie stares at the words for seconds, taking up some valuable time. However, her time at the Big Moist comes back to her. She remembers the shadow rift, the strange crow inside of it and its cryptic riddles that were presented to her. “It’s nothing! The answer is Nothing!” She yells out.
Lues, like a switch was flicked in her brain the moment Kirstie gets the answer, reels back her fist.
Punch through the wood - [10 Muscle]
She braces herself as her fist ploughs through the plywood, creating a hole and shooting splinters around, threatening to imbed themselves into an unfortunate person’s limb. Some of them do imbed into her arm, but she ignores it and feels around for the safe. Locating it, she begins to enter the letters N, O, T, H, I, N, G, into the combination lock.
The shackle clicks open, Lues lifting the lock out and dumping it to the ground. She pulls open the safe, grabbing about half of the tools that she could manage to reach inside the safe, then pulls her hand back through the hole.
The man comes around with a pumpkin, setting it in front of the two. “60 seconds remaining, keep up the pace!” The pumpkin was thankfully, already hollow.
Lues and Kirstie switch places, Lues beginning to make the initial carvings and Kirstie retrieving the rest of the tools inside of the safe.
There is just one small issue. Lues has never carved a pumpkin in her entire life. She attempts to convey this information to Kirstie by glancing at her with a slight unease in her expression, and then taking one step back.
Kirstie takes a moment to recognise the signal, taking up precious seconds. She quickly moves over and lightly grips one of Lues’ hands with her own, guiding Lues with the cuts in the pumpkin.
As the timer finally ticks down to zero, Lues and Kirstie remove the last piece of the pumpkin. “Time’s up! It’s time for me to see your handiwork.” He exclaims, then turns the pumpkin 180 degrees to look at the carving.
Kirstie’s grin grows awkward while the man stares and tilts his head. “It looks normal, but…” But, Kirstie had left an additional carving on the side. The man turns the pumpkin to get a better look at the carving, only to reveal the three dreaded letters slashed into the side…
BOO!
The man utters a yelp as he stumbles back from the utterly petrifying word. His horror-stricken look slowly returns to a look of surprise as he starts to laugh, realising that there was no danger and that he was just spooked. “Whew! That really had me quaking in my boots, you two gave me a good fright! Great job gals, let me get your prize!” He reaches down, grabbing something from beneath the stand and revealing it to the duo.
The man reveals a broad-brimmed straw hat. “You two just won a hat taken directly from one of the most formidable foes in Gray County, a being that strikes fear into even the most formidable murders, one that-”
“Uh, do you mean murderers?” Kirstie interjects.
“Haha, no, I said murders.”
Lues sighs, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “...So it’s a hat from a scarecrow.”
“Well, it’s a lot less dramatic if you put it like that… but, yes.” The man’s eyes glance around nervously for a moment. “Do you two still want it?”
“Oh! Uh, no worries, we still- we’ll still take it!” Kirstie grabs the hat from the man. “Lues, let’s… uh, we should go.” She begins to walk off.
Lues nods, following Kirstie.
As they move away from the boardwalk, the man shouts over to them. “By the way! If you want to try out the regular challenges, stop by again!”
The duo are making their way back towards the antiques shop. Kirstie examines the hat in her hands, tilting and rotating it every which way.
Lues glances towards the hat, before focusing her gaze towards Kirstie. “Try wearing it. See how it looks.” She suggests.
Kirstie stops in her tracks, looking down at the straw hat. “Huh? I… well, alright.” She raises it and plants it atop her head. “How- uhm. How do I look?”
Lues stops and turns around. She focuses on Kirstie for a few seconds, then lets out a light chuckle. “It’s nice. You know, halloween was a favourite time for me as a child. It’s just that I wasn’t ever allowed to carve anything.” She turns back forwards. “We should continue moving. Charlie Flint may have already come back, we should not keep him and the others waiting.”
“Oh, yeah, you’re right. Let’s just… let’s keep going.” Kirstie hastens her speed, following Lues back to Plunkett Street.
Plunkett Street looks as unremarkable as ever, albeit a lot less dreary than when they had first arrived back at the start of their adventures. Charlie leans on the Cola Wars Surplus store, seemingly unbothered by the fact that he must have moved two beds into the antiques store by hand.
“Hi, Charlie.” Kirstie calls out to him. “Bit of a, uh, weird question. What… day is it?”
Charlie looks up towards the sky, making an attempt to remember something. The rain had cleared up since their individual journeys towards the white black house. “November 25th, I reckon. ‘Bout a month ‘till Crimbo, ‘n I think there’s a calendar in the shop.”
“Oh.” Kirstie is silent for a few seconds. “Oh, no. I hate Crimbo.”